


The Funeral

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: The Twilight Storm [17]
Category: Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures, Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23549011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: Bella meets some fellow former companions when she is invited to the Doctor’s funeral.
Series: The Twilight Storm [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694503
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Old Companions for the First Time

**Author's Note:**

> This final story jumps forward a few years after Bella's departure from her time as a regular TARDIS traveller, looking at what she's been doing since she left the Doctor before she's reunited with a few old acquaintances

It had been four years since I'd been travelling in the TARDIS, but when I was met by UNIT soldiers during my 'working holiday' in Italy, it was still the most shocking news I'd ever received.

_The Doctor is dead_.

I'd built such a complicated life for myself since those long-ago days when I travelled through time and space with the most incredible man I'd ever known, going from a traumatised teenage girl unable to get over the loss of her boyfriend to the United Nations' official liaison to the world's resident vampires, but this news was still the most devastating blow I'd ever felt. Even as I'd known that even the Doctor couldn't live forever, the knowledge that his death had taken place at a time when I could be _told_ about it…

The moment I'd received that news, I'd swiftly called the Cullens to ask for Rosalie and Emmett to act as my representatives in the meeting with the Volturi that I'd been attending at the time. I still maintained a good relationship with the Cullens as a whole, even if Edward still wouldn't talk to me unless it was absolutely necessary, but most of the time I insisted on dealing directly with the Volturi unless other circumstances demanded my attention at the time of a scheduled meeting.

Of course, interacting with the Cullens was easier now that they had two human children to care for thanks to my actions, as it meant that I now felt like I had a definite part in their lives, beyond just being someone they had to protect. Obviously Esme was particularly devoted to Steven, and Carlisle had always treated the boy as though he had been Steven's father rather than Esme's first husband, but they had both made it clear that I could consider myself Steven's 'godmother', due to my role in bringing him to this time. I had a similar relationship with Rosalie and Emmett's son Jonathan (they had never explicitly told me that he was named after the Doctor, but the Cullens were too well-read to have been short of ideas for names, and they didn't know any other 'Johns' who might have inspired that choice), and whenever I came to visit, the Cullens always seemed to be ready for a hunt so that I could spend time with their two new children.

Steven and Jonathan could become frustrated at the protectiveness of the rest of the family, but as much as a couple of five-year-olds could understand the situation, they understood that their parents were careful because they loved their children rather than anything more selfish. The Cullens had avoided giving the boys any specific details of their vampiric nature, and I was never sure if Esme had told Steven about his 'real' father, but so long as everyone was happy I never felt the need to pry.

Even with the guarantee of protection thanks to their new deal with UNIT, liaising with the Volturi would never stop being unnerving at the very least. Despite that, whenever I met with the Cullens, what made me feel better was the knowledge that my actions were ensuring that Steven and Jonathan would grow up with their parents and be allowed to make their own choices. Work on the blood substitute still wasn't completely perfect, and we were still working out exactly how it would be distributed on a large scale given the nomadic nature of some vampires, but the Volturi had agreed to our original term of preventing the kind of hunts or revenge hunts that had driven James and Victoria to try and kill me, and we had achieved a kind of compromise when it came to 'permitted' human targets for the moment.

Neither side was entirely happy with it, of course, but I had liked to think that the Doctor would understand that we were making the best of a difficult situation… and now, here I was, being driven to his funeral…

Of course, as I was driven towards Mount Snowdon, I already knew that there was more to this story than what I'd been told in that hologram.

" _The Shansheeth did journey to the wastelands of the Crimson Heart, whereupon we found the body of the last Time Lord. Witnesses say that he perished saving the lives of five hundred children from the Scarlet Monstrosity. The Doctor's home world is long since lost, but legends talk of his love for the Earth. Therefore, the Shansheeth will return the Doctor to the human race. Oh, weep for him, peoples of the Earth. Mourn his loss, for the universe feels darker tonight_."

Saving children from the Scarlet Monstrosity on the wastelands of the Crimson Heart sounded dramatic, but even if I hadn't already known that the Doctor was destined to die on the planet Trenzalore (wherever that was), it almost sounded _too_ tragic and melodramatic, as though someone was trying to sell everyone a story.

_Whatever the Shansheeth's role is in this, I'm not going to get anywhere if I don't at least attend this funeral…_

* * *

After the fastest flight I could find to take me to Britain- one advantage of working for UNIT was that I could make quite a few last-minute purchases so long as I could justify them later- I was standing in front of the UNIT base of Mount Snowdon, looking apprehensively up at it. Considering UNIT's need for secrecy in most of their bases, I could understand how a few people might feel the urge to 'indulge' when establishing such a remote facility, but that didn't stop me feeling uncomfortable at the sight of that large tower sticking out of the side of the mountain.  
  
"Miss Isabella Swan?" a voice said. Turning around, I smiled politely at the older Indian woman in the UNIT uniform.  
  
"That's me," I nodded, shaking her hand. "And you?"  
  
"Colonel Karim; I'm head of the team responsible for organising the Doctor's funeral."  
  
"Oh," I said, only able to nod at that news. "Sorry I wasn't here earlier…"  
  
"You're in time; that's what matters," the colonel said politely. "The funeral's due to start in the next few minutes, and the other available guests are already present or on their way to the funeral room; I can show you down."  
  
"Thank you," I nodded, following the colonel as she led the way deeper into the facility. I was briefly surprised when I saw a group of short blue creatures with tentacles coming out of their heads, but decided to focus on tracing my path; if I'd learned anything travelling with the Doctor, it was to always have an escape plan, and those blue things were too short to be really dangerous.  
  
Actually, as I walked along the corridors, I was briefly struck by how 'samey' these places could become after you spent enough time in them. Military bases might have their own variety and organisation, but there were still a certain pattern to the layout that I'd become familiar with since I left school…  
  
 _And what does it say about my life if I've become the kind of person who can recognise a pattern in the design of military bases_?  
  
I briefly registered the rocket that Karim told me would take the Doctor's body into space in a lead-lined coffin once the funeral was over, but somehow even that didn't feel quite right to me. Lead was probably secure as a means of protecting the Doctor's body, and the idea of him forever flying through the stars he'd travelled among and protected felt nice, but the whole rocket concept seemed a bit too functional for someone as wild as the Doctor.  
  
"I'm so sorry for your loss," a Shansheeth said, standing solemnly at the door to what Karim had identified as the funeral room. "The Claw Shansheeth invites you to spend tonight reflecting in the memories of a loved one lost."  
  
"Thanks," I said, nodding awkwardly at the purple-cloaked alien. As I walked into the funeral room, taking in the basic benches and a few candlesticks arranged around the edges of the room in front of the large lead coffin, I smiled as I saw a few familiar faces sitting up at the front, even if they were accompanied by two less familiar ones.  
  
"Hey, Sarah Jane," I smiled at the older brunette sitting at the front of the room, who barely looked older than the last time I had seen her five years ago, before turning to the two teenagers beside her. "Clyde, Rani; is Luke OK?"  
  
"He's at uni… ohmigod, _Bella_?" Rani said, standing up and hurrying over to give me a hug, smiling as she stepped back in time for Clyde to walk over, the teenage boy awkwardly holding out a hand before I pulled him into a hug.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Clyde asked, before shaking his head in frustration. "I mean, I get _why_ you're here, but… I mean, you look…"  
  
"I travelled with the Doctor when I was in my late teens and my home time was five years ago," I explained, looking over at Sarah as she stood up to smile at me. "I was working in Italy when I heard the news, and… well, here I am."  
  
"Bella…" Sarah smiled at me.  
  
"I'm sorry; who are you?" the other woman said, her voice displaying a strong accent that sounded somewhat Australian to me. She seemed to be in her sixties, but still looked like she was in good shape, with thick blonde hair and a lined face that still somehow managed to look young in some manner.  
  
"Jo, this is Bella Swan; she travelled with the Doctor… well, we met her last year," Sarah Jane Smith said, smiling at the other woman and me. "Bella, this is Jo Grant; she was the Doctor's assistant before he met me."  
  
"Really?" I looked at Jo in surprise. "Does that mean you knew the Brigadier?"  
  
"You met Alistair?" the woman asked, even as the smile on her face answered that question for me.  
  
"The Doctor and I ended up in the mid-seventies saving UNIT from a Japanese mob boss who had a grudge against our mutual friend," I explained. "It was… an interesting time."  
  
"Aren't they always?" Jo smiled back at me before her expression became more solemn. "Well… it's good to meet you, anyway; this is my grandson, Santiago."  
  
"Hi," the unknown teen smiled at me.  
  
"Nice to meet you," I smiled at him.  
  
"How did they find you?" Sarah asked.  
  
"I… I'm a liaison for the United Nations and UNIT between humanity and… well, it's simplest to think of them as vampires," I answered.  
  
" _Vampires_?" Clyde and Rani stared at me incredulously, along with the third teen.  
  
"We're working on finding a substitute food source for them at the moment," I said, waving a hand at the two teens. "We can talk about that later."  
  
"With respect, the cradle will continue," a Shansheeth said firmly from beside the coffin.  
  
"Right…" I said, moving into position to sit just behind Jo and Sarah.  
  
"They used to tell so many stories about you at UNIT," Sarah noted to Jo.  
  
"Those soldier boys," Jo smiled. "Ooo, happy days."  
  
"So you're still married?"  
  
"Oh yes," Jo said. "He's picketing an oil rig in the Ascension Islands at the moment. And I've got seven children."  
  
" _Seven_?" Sarah and I said simultaneously.  
  
"And Santiago is one of twelve grandchildren," Jo added. "Would you believe number thirteen on its way? How about you two?"  
  
"No kids, but I do have a couple of god-children I'm… very close to," I said; as much as I trusted my fellow former companions, this wasn't the time to discuss my complex extended family dynamic.  
  
"I have a son, Luke; he's just gone to university," Sarah put in. "No dad in the picture."  
  
"Playing the field?" Jo smiled between Sarah and I. "Good on you, girls."  
  
"It's funny," Sarah said suddenly, smile shifting to a wistful expression. "All of this today… it got me thinking. The Doctor… he showed me such a remarkable life, and when he went, it took me a long while to get over it."  
  
"Me too," Jo put in.  
  
"I'm not sure I ever did," I added. "I mean, I was aware of the vampires I'm working with before I met the Doctor, but I only really tried to do anything about their situation because I met him…"  
  
"Lucky you," Sarah said, looking at me with an expression I found it hard to judge. "It took him coming back for me to realise that the life I wanted was right under my nose."  
  
"Who?" Jo asked, looking at Sarah in surprise  
  
"Who came back? The Doctor? Recently?"  
  
"About four years ago."  
  
"I… I never saw him again," Jo said, her brow furrowing for a moment before she settled for looking wistful.  
  
"It was just a coincidence," Sarah put in. "The first time we were both investigating this case-"  
  
"The first time?" Jo cut Sarah off, looking at her in shock. "You mean it was more than once?"  
  
"Yeah," Sarah said. "That's how I met Bella; she was travelling with the Doctor when… he had to save me from something."  
  
"Oh, he must have liked you," Jo said, before she moved slightly to lean against Sarah while staring at the coffin. "You know, it's funny, but I have this notion that if the Doctor died one day, I mean, even if he was as far away as Metebelis Three, that, that I'd feel it, you know, in my heart."  
  
"That's exactly what I thought, but I didn't feel a thing," Sarah said.  
  
"Me neither," I put in, deciding to hide my current knowledge about the Doctor's future death; we were getting on to the topic I had wanted to confront since I got here, and that was what really mattered.  
  
"Nor me," Jo said. "Not a peep."  
  
"Are we all thinking the same thing?" Sarah asked.  
  
"What?" Jo asked, moving away from Sarah to look directly at our fellow ex-companion. "Because I think-"  
  
"He's still alive," Sarah and I said along with Jo.  
  
I still didn't know what was really happening here or how I was going to explain it without going into detail about future events and making things more complicated, but I had allies in my quest to find out what was really going on here.


	2. When Generations Meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I feel obligated to confirm that all scenes involving Clyde, Rani and Santiago on their own from this point onwards will basically happen as they did in canon; Jo and Sarah might be significantly older than Bella, but she feels like she has more in common with them than she does with the children considering that all three of the women have travelled with the Doctor

"Right," Sarah said, as the three of us gathered in the room that had been set aside for Sarah's group when they came here, Sarah's friends and Jo's grandson standing awkwardly in a corner. "We need to make a list, because we need to work out who'd fake the Doctor's death and why."

"Start with who'd have the ability to use the TARDIS," I put in, as Sarah pulled out an old-fashioned notebook bound in brown leather. "It can't exactly be a coincidence that nobody here's willing to tell us what happened to her."

"And these can help us think," Jo added, taking a small pair of candles out of her bag. "They're scented with jatamansi oil; it's a herb from the banks of the Ganges. It helps to focus the mind."

"We'll… go and get some tea?" Rani suggested, awkwardly shrugging on her jacket as she, Clyde and Santiago moved towards the room's door.

"No, no, no, just hot water for me, please, sweetheart," Jo said. "I've got some powdered lapacho. You know, the Doctor took me to this planet once, called Peladon, and the smell of lapacho, well, it reminds me of the Royal Palace."

"I went to Peladon," Sarah said.

"You never did," Jo looked sharply at our fellow companion.

"With the great beast Aggedor?" I put in with a smile, glad to have a definitively shared experience with the two older women. "He took me there just to meet Aggedor's puppies."

" _Puppies_?" Sarah and Jo looked at me in surprise.

"I thought there was only one Aggedor left?" Jo clarified.

"And I thought that one died helping us," Sarah added, a touch of sorrow on her face at the memory.

"Apparently the one you met had a daughter that was raised in secret until it gave birth when he went back… I think the Doctor said that Aggedor gave birth fifty years after his last visit," I explained, briefly registering Rani, Clyde and Santiago leaving the room as we talked. "He said that he wanted to help me realise that… well, even when you think there's no hope for things to get better, life finds a way to surprise you."

"Still the teacher…" Jo said, looking wistfully at me. "Good for him."

"It's too bad he doesn't always get it right," Sarah mused with a wistful smile. "You know, he once took me to meet Rudyard Kipling and we ended up helping Arthur Conan Doyle save a teenage Kipling from a warped experiment with alien DNA."

"Well, it wouldn't be the Doctor if he got it all right the first time," I mused. "After all, we ended up stopping aliens from brainwashing humanity into being their servants when we were meant to be on holiday in 1950s Hollywood."

"Or the time he took me thirty thousand years into the future when we were meant to be going to a meeting in London," Sarah mused.

"Yes, well…" Jo said, looking between us with a wistful smile. "As nice as it is to reminisce, maybe we should get on with things?"

"Right…" Sarah nodded apologetically at Jo. "Sorry; it's sometimes… well, Clyde, Rani and Luke do their best, but they've never actually _been_ there…"

"I know," I nodded. "I know a couple of telepaths who've tried to read my mind to get a feel for what I saw with him, but there's just no substitute for actually _being_ out there…"

I paused as I heard music fill the room once again, looking up in surprise for a moment before I decided to just accept it; we were attending a memorial, so music wasn't exactly the worst thing to have…

"It reminds me…" Jo said softly, as the three of us sat around a table. "The Doctor took me to this planet once called Karfel. And they had a leisure garden. And the plants could sing."

"He took me to Italy, once," Sarah added. "San Martino, 1492. I remember this magnificent garden. It smelled of oranges, vanilla."

"The planet Primator," I said, feeling a need to share in this moment of reminiscence. "In an exact orbit around two suns, kept in a position that makes it a place of eternal summer without anyone needing to worry about a winter."

"Drashigs, Axons, Ogrons, the Daleks," Jo put in.

"Cybermen, Zygons, Sontarans, Sutekh," Sarah added.

"Fairies, Selyoids, Tritovores, Vampires," I said, offering my own contribution.

"Azal…" Jo added, her voice trailing off as we all became lost in our memories of the most incredible man we'd ever known, a man whose death I wasn't sure I could ever bring myself to accept even when I knew _where_ he was meant to die.

The Doctor had stopped the manta ray swarm that had devoured San Helios from destroying any other planets… he had managed to avoid being trapped by the Daleks' most dangerous prison in a time _before_ the Time War… he'd overcome a force that was manipulating evolution… he had escaped an attack intended to erase him from history…

I just _couldn't_ believe he had died like the Shansheeth claimed, on some random planet that nobody here had ever heard of, fighting something that none of us knew anything about…

Lost in thought, I only realised that the music had stopped when Sarah Jane jolted sharply in front of me, and it was only then that I realised that my mind had been wandering.

"Jo?" Sarah said, looking anxiously at our third fellow ex-companion. "Jo, wake up!"

"What?" Jo asked, even as she followed our cue and quickly got to her feet.

"Rani?" Sarah asked, hurrying out of the room and into the empty corridor outside. "Clyde?"

"Where is everyone?" Jo asked.

"I think there's something wrong," Sarah said.

"And we all know what _that_ meant for us for a significant part of our lives," I noticed, unwittingly finding myself smiling at the older women before we ran down another corridor, turning around it to find ourselves looking at Sarah's friends.

"Sarah Jane, it's the Shansheeth!" Clyde said urgently. "They're lying through their beaks; they want you, Jo and Bella! This whole thing's a trap!"

"I knew it!" Sarah smiled.

"Hold on," Jo said, looking at Sarah and I with a smile. "If they're lying… that means the Doctor's still alive! Yes!"

"Of course I'm still alive, Jo," Clyde suddenly said in a different-yet-familiar voice just as Jo and I were about to exchange high-fives after she'd offered one to Sarah. "I thought that was obvious; catch up."

"I beg your pardon?" Jo looked indignantly at the teenage boy.

"Clyde, is that you?" Sarah asked.

"Course it's not, it's _me_ ," the voice said. "I'm using Clyde as a receiver; I've keyed into his residual artron energy so I can organise a very complicated biological swap across ten thousand light years. Hold on."

None of us could do anything more than watch as Clyde suddenly reeled in pain while blue energy sparked around his body, the glow fading to leave him staring at us all incredulously.

"That wasn't me…" he said, clearly aware of what had just happened even if he seeed just as confused about it as the rest of us. "That wasn't me speaking… I'm getting…"

He looked down at himself, and suddenly realised that something had changed.

"That's not my hand," he said, raising his hands in front of his face, his left hand a distinctly different colour to the other one. "My hand's not white…"

The rest of us were 'saved' from reacting to this development when he began to glow again, his entire body this time visibly changing into a taller, thinner man with long brown hair wearing a brown tweed jacket and a bow tie.

"Sorry, Clyde," the other man said, eyes closed as he shifted back and forth between himself and Clyde, "but this… space… is… _taken_!"

With those final words, the glow faded and the other man was left standing where Clyde had been, grinning nonchalantly at us.

"Good," the new arrival said, even as my eyes widened, remembering that strange event with Zygons, Queen Elizabeth, and the Doctor who didn't think of himself as such and the _future_ Doctor who'd told my one about his future. "So, gosh, that was different; hello, everyone!"

"Who are you?" Rani said sharply. "Where's Clyde?"

"Come on, Rani, use your brain," the Doctor- the _Eleventh Doctor_ \- said dismissively. "Clyde and I swapped places; I'm where he was, he's where I was, which means right now… ooo… he's in a lot of trouble."

"Not something you thought about at the time, I take it?" I asked, smiling slightly at my old friend.

"In my defence, Bella, I _was_ stuck for options-" the Doctor began nonchalantly.

"You bring him back!" Rani insisted. "Whoever you are!"

"No no no, Rani, don't you see?" Sarah said, looking reassuringly at her young friend for a moment, before she took in the man in the bow tie with a growing smile. "It's you, isn't it? Oh, you've done it again…"

"Hello, Sarah Jane," the Doctor smiled at her.

"Doctor," Sarah returned the smile with her own grin.

I quickly fought down the urge to ask where Clara was; if meeting three Doctors at once had taught me anything, it was that time travel was complicated, and just because _I_ knew this Doctor was no guarantee that _he_ had met _me_ in his current body yet…

"That's the Doctor?" Rani said.

"That's him," I confirmed. "Who else could pull off that look at that apparent age?"

"Bow ties are cool," the Doctor said, defensively adjusting the tie even as he smiled at me. "Good to see you, Swan."

"Hold on; you're _the_ Doctor?" Jo stared at him incredulously. " _My_ Doctor?"

"Well, he can change his face-" Sarah began.

"Yes, I know, but into a baby's?"

"Oi, imagine it from my point of view!" the Doctor protested. "Last time I saw you, Jo Grant, you were, what, 21, 22? It's like someone baked you."

"And still no tact," I smiled as Jo gasped in mock indignation at the Doctor.

"Everyone!" Santiago yelled, indicating the corridor behind us as the Shansheeth began to walk towards our small group. "Meanwhile?"

"Ah, yes, the Claw Shansheeth of the Fifteenth Funeral Fleet, I've been _looking_ for you," the Doctor said, walking neatly between Sarah and Rani before pacing onwards to address our latest enemies. "Have you been telling people that I'm dead?"

"I apologise," the Shansheeth said nonchalantly. "The death notice was released a little too soon… though I can rectify this immediately."

For a moment, none of us were able to move as the Shansheeth fired a strange burst of red energy at the Doctor, forcing the last Time Lord to his knees as the six of us could only watch the greatest man we'd ever known about to die again…


	3. Isolated Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, the Doctor, Sarah and Jo will be separated from the children as in canon, but Bella will be staying on Earth; I couldn't think of a good reason for the Doctor to take her along with Jo and Sarah when those two gave him everything he needed to amend the teleporter in canon

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Doctor," the Shansheeth said, sounding sickeningly nonchalant even for an alien undertaker as it fired the energy weapon at the Doctor. "Rest in peace."

I had just begun to reach for the dagger I always carried with me, unsure if I could do anything but equally sure that I had to try _something_ , when the Doctor was suddenly enveloped by a new bubble of artron energy and Clyde returned, standing straight up where the Doctor had been crouched on the floor, the Shansheeth's weapon ceasing to function as they stared at Sarah's young friend in surprise.

"But I was on a planet…" Clyde began as he looked at us in confusion.

"Never mind that!" Sarah said urgently. "Run!"

With that command, Clyde glanced behind himself to see the gathered Shansheeth before he ran to join us as we hurried down the corridor, the Shansheeth moving behind us at what was fortunately a relatively slow speed.

"Faster!" Sarah yelled as she reached a door, waving the rest of us through it. Glancing back, I saw the Doctor was once again part of the group and Clyde had vanished, but I decided to prioritise getting away right now; I'd just assume that Clyde and the Doctor had switched again. With Rani in the lead, I soon realised that we were heading for the area I recalled from the maps I'd seen earlier was the dormitory section of this base, the Doctor urgently waving us inside as Colonel Karim walked up to the door.

"I'm sorry; is there a problem?" the colonel said, evidently unaware of the Doctor's identity before the Time Lord dived into the room after us, only to pause and open the door again.

"Sorry; I was slamming it," he said to Karim, before he turned back to address the rest of us. "Right, now we need to lock it; come on, use the sonic lipstick."

"Sonic lipstick?" I repeated incredulously. "What; you use it to excite the blood vessels in your lips or something?"

"Actually, it doesn't work as a regular lipstick," Sarah noted, even as she took a small tube out of her pocket. "And haven't you got the screwdriver?"

"They took it," the Doctor said, as Sarah turned the lipstick on the door's lock.

"They do sonic lipsticks now?" Jo asked as she hurried up to join Sarah by the door, grinning as she looked at the Doctor.

"We're running out of time," the Doctor said, pacing the room before his gaze fixed on his two companions. "I need you, Sarah, and you, Jo."

"Not me?" I looked at the Doctor.

"Someone needs to look after the kids, Bella, and this is going to be difficult enough with just two more people," the Doctor looked apologetically at me, even as he took Jo and Sarah's hands. "Remember the old days when we'd go zooming off to faraway worlds?"

With those words, the Doctor glowed and vanished again, leaving Clyde standing in the place of the Time Lord and the two older women.

"Ugh…" Clyde groaned, looking awkwardly at Rani, Santiago and I as he did a couple of awkward stretches. "I'm getting spacesick…"

Rani smiled at the words, but the smile faded when we heard a knocking at the door.

"I'm sorry, but can I help?" Karim's voice said from the other side of the door, even as I raised a finger to my lips while looking urgently at the other three. "Is there something wrong?"

"But she's on our side, isn't she?" Santiago asked, looking between the rest of us.

"Think about it," Rani said, looking between Clyde and I in understanding that we'd all come to the same conclusion. "The Doctor was taking care to avoid her, but why?"

"Because someone inside UNIT had to fake the DNA results if they were able to convince enough people in this organisation that the Doctor was dead," I put in. "And since the Doctor wouldn't be that rude to someone working for UNIT without good reason, Colonel Karim must be in league with the Shansheeth."  
  
I sighed and rolled my eyes in exasperation. "And of course, they already confirmed that every UNIT contact we have is busy elsewhere, and my own contacts with the Volturi can't get here in time to make a difference…"  
  
"The Vol-who?" Santiago asked.  
  
"Oh, they're the rulers of the secret vampire nation that exists among humanity," I said briefly.  
  
" _Vampires_?" Clyde, Rani and Santiago stared at me incredulously.  
  
" _Vampires_ are real now?" Clyde said. "I mean, OK, we fought gorgons once, but _vampires_?"  
  
"Well, the ones I'm talking about are actually part-vampire and part-Ogri, which are basically this race of living blood-absorbing rocks, but there are more conventional vampires out there according to the Doctor," I explained. "I dated one of the Ogri hybrids before I met the Doctor, and after I stopped travelling with him, I basically became a negotiator to help these vampires make deals with the UN while their society worked on a blood substitute."  
  
"Blood substitute?" Rani looked at me in surprise. "You actually got _vampires_ to use a _blood substitute_?"  
  
"It wasn't easy, but I had the advantage that the Doctor knew another ex-vampire who'd worked on a similar project a few years ago," I explained. "Her work didn't pan out back then, but she was able to give a couple of my own contacts a few good ideas to make progress on that particular project."  
  
"And you're… OK with that?" Santiago asked. "I mean, they're _vampires_ …"  
  
"Some of whom only drank from humans because they were dealing with an intensely burning thirst that left them feeling like they'd had a red-hot poker shoved down their throats and were desperate for anything to ease it," I explained. "It wasn't easy to distribute the cure on a larger scale, and there are still a few nomads out there who don't like the new rules even if the alternative's palatable enough, but for the most part, any vampires living among us now are on the blood substitute and under orders to kill anyone responsible for killing humans."  
  
"Really?" Clyde looked at me with a smile. "That's… kind of cool."  
  
"And… what about turning people into _new_ vampires?" Rani asked.  
  
"They're under orders not to turn at random, but my allies and were able to negotiate that vampires can turn others if the subject is at the point of death and has been briefed on what the transformation will do to them while still being mentally competent to make that kind of call," I explained. "These vampires aren't vulnerable to stakes or sunlight, but… well, they're obviously not human if they're exposed to bright sunlight even if it won't kill them, and the pain of the thirst can be an issue, particularly in the first year of a vampire's life, so people shouldn't make that decision lightly."  
  
"Not something you'd recommend, then?" Rani asked.  
  
"Not especially," I acknowledged, smiling slightly at the irony.  
  
There had been a time when I'd wanted nothing more than to be a vampire, but once I'd gotten over my feelings for Edward, I had accepted that it wasn't what I wanted for eternity. It might have offered a chance at new experiences, but as much as I'd enjoyed the chance to see the future when I was with the Doctor, I wasn't sure I'd have the patience to take 'the slow path', and I'd have missed so many minor sensations such as eating food rather than blood…  
  
"OK, let's check our options," Rani said, heading for a nearby computer and turning it on, tapping keys for a few moments before she settled on a particular schematic and indicated it to the rest of us. "Here we are; plans for the base, and we're slap-bang in the middle; there's got to be a way of getting help."  
  
"That's-" I began, before a klaxon suddenly sounded.  
  
"What's happening?" Santiago asked.  
  
"Karim's sealed off the funeral wing," Rani said, staring anxiously at the screen as several corridors turned red. "We're trapped."  
  
I was saved from reacting to that development when a small blue-skinned creature with two long tentacle-like things kicked open the ventilation grill on the wall behind us.  
  
"Hurry," the creature said, waving an arm urgently at us. "Follow me."  
  
With nothing else for us to do, I hurried into the vent, the three teens close behind me; following a small blue alien through ventilation shafts might be a strange move, but it was hardly the most insane thing I'd ever done in my life, particularly when this blue thing had done nothing more serious to us than not be human. After a few moments of frantic crawling, we reached a comparatively large box-like area, with circular vents on the walls and Christmas-tree lights illuminating it.  
  
"Hey, nice," Clyde said, emerging from the shaft after me to study the area with an approving smile. "You've got a little den. What's all the hurry for?"  
  
"Pizza go cold."  
  
"Excuse me?" I looked sharply at the creature as it offered the pizza boxes. "Our friend and humanity's greatest ally is being threatened by the Shansheeth, and your 'plan' is to hide hear and eat _pizza_?"  
  
"Shansheeth too scary," the alien said said. "We hide."  
  
"Scary?" I repeated. " _This_ is scary to you? 'Scary' is being stuck in an alternate timeline where you're one of only three people who know that the human race _isn't_ meant to be a massive target for what seems like every other species in existence; 'scary' is realising that you, your best friend, and the only hope you have of resolving the mess you're in are _all_ being mutated into _something_. _This_ isn't scary; _this_ is just you panicking because something looks intimidating in a purple cloak!"  
  
"Uh… not meaning to sound like a coward, but it's not _that_ stupid an idea," Rani put in, even as she looked at me with a new sense of awe. "I mean, whatever the Doctor's doing with that body switcheroo, he needs Clyde for it, so we need to keep _him_ away from the Shansheeth above everything else…"  
  
"Point," I conceded, as the blue thing offered pizza around the room.  
  
"I can't believe you get to do this all the time," Santiago said, after we'd sat in silence eating the offered pizza out of a lack of anything else to do with ourselves. "Like aliens and vampires and chases and stuff…"  
  
"You can talk, Santiago," Clyde put in. "You're off to Paraguay and Mount Everest."  
  
"And Bella gets to go all over the world tracking _vampires_ ," Rani put in.  
  
"Says the teen who got zapped to another planet a few minutes ago," I noted with a smile.  
  
"Yeah, that was pretty cool," Clyde acknowledged.  
  
"We've been to parallel times, dream dimensions, limbo …" Rani said, staring upwards wistfully for a moment. "And then we go home for tea."  
  
"We see all this, then my mum's like, What did you do today?" Clyde put in. "I'm like, not much."  
  
"Went to the library."  
  
"Played a bit of footie."  
  
"Stayed behind after Drama Club."  
  
"And I fought off a platoon of Judoon in my spare time."  
  
"I've not seen my mum for six months now," Santiago observed.  
  
"How come?" Rani looked at him in surprise.  
  
"She's in Japan, organising a rally," Santiago said. "I mean, that's great, you know. It's really good work."  
  
"At least your mother has a good reason for being away," I said, voicing something I hadn't shared with anyone for years. "My mother… I loved her, but she was so free-spirited she couldn't even settle down somewhere for _my_ sake; I ended up moving to Forks and meeting Edward, and later the Doctor, because I wanted to give her the chance to make a life with her new husband."  
  
"Your parents are divorced?" Clyde asked, smiling briefly.  
  
"That's funny?" I looked at him pointedly.  
  
"Just ironic," Clyde shrugged. "Mine are separated, Maria's were divorced, Sarah Jane's raising Luke as a single mum and _her_ parents… anyway, Rani's the only one of us with both parents still a major part of her life."  
  
"Add me to the separated parents list," Santiago put in. "My father's with the Gay Dads Organisation hiking across Anarctica."  
  
"Ah," I nodded at him, lost for the appropriate response to that kind of revelation. "That _is_ awkward."  
  
"What with Mum being in Japan and her time looking for shell flower plants in Africa before that, we haven't all been together since… February?"  
  
"And no idea when you'll see them again," I looked sympathetically at the young man. "It's always hard; I keep trying to see Steven and Jonathan, but there's just so much going on…"  
  
"Steven and Jonathan?" Rani asked.  
  
"My four and three-year-old godsons," I clarified with a smile, noting the potentially teasing grin on her face. "The Doctor and I saved Steven's life when he was an infant, and Jonathan only even exists because we nipped back and collected DNA samples from his parents when they were human…"  
  
"Human?" Clyde looked at me in dawning incredulity. "You're not saying… you're letting _vampires_ raise _kids_?"  
  
"The Cullens drank animal blood _before_ we introduced an alternative, and I dated their son for a while before I met the Doctor," I explained. "They helped give me the in I needed to convince the Volturi- the leaders of Earth's vampires- to give us a chance to find another way for them to live, and I still use them as my 'official' vampire contacts if I find a suitably big problem and need to deal with it on fairly short notice."  
  
"Hold on; you dated a _vampire_?" Clyde looked at her in surprise. "And you're still friends with a _vampire_ ex?"  
  
"Edward may be emotionally and psychologically frozen at the age of seventeen with a very dated morality when it comes to relationships and his instinctive views on equality for the sexes, but he's not a bad person," I explained. "He's just… well, we weren't in a great place when we were dating; let's leave it at that."  
  
"What-?" Clyde began, before we were interrupted as shutters slammed down across the ventilation ducts we'd used earlier, leaving us to drop our food and anxiously assess our surroundings. "What? What's happening?"  
  
"Trapped," the Groske observed, just as the walls and vents around us began to get warmer.  
  
I was _definitely_ going to have words with UNIT once this was over; how could someone be allowed to reach the kind of rank and connections necessary to set up a funeral for _the Doctor_ and still turn out to be a traitor?


	4. The Fall of the Shansheeth

"It won't budge!" Clyde yelled, slamming his hand in frustration against the 'door' between us and our original entrance. I'd already tried to work through the hatch by breaking the crack with the dagger I'd received from Lorindar- it was a pain getting that thing through customs, but diplomatic connections definitely helped- but even an indestructible dagger couldn't cope with an increasingly hot metal.

"Come on, Groske!" Clyde looked urgently at the creature as the area turned red from the heat. "There's got to be a way out!"

"No," the Groske said, so casually I wondered if it even felt the heat. "We die like rotisserie."

"Like what?" I asked.

"That's not important; what's important is that we're _not_ dying like this!" Rani yelled, staring at the vent in the ceiling. "Sarah Jane! Anyone!"

"Oi!" Clyde added. "Where are you? Get us out of here, Doctor!"

"There's no-!" I began, before I held up a hand and pressed the other one against the wall, smiling as I felt a faint but still familiar vibration at the other end. "OK, don't worry about it; he's there now."

"What?" Clyde and Rani looked at me sharply.

"I've spent a lot of time with a race who have ridiculously enhanced senses and working with a man who uses a very specific tool; I had to learn to be aware of little details," I explained with a smile. "And what I'm sensing right now is someone using a sonic device to get inside this vent, which means that the Doctor and/or Sarah Jane are back in the game."

"OK, that's great, but it doesn't help us avoid getting _boiled alive_!" Clyde yelled, still urgently slamming his hands against the door.

"Just hold on and wait," I said, staring at the door. "Give it a moment…"

Finally, after a few moments of anxious waiting as the heat increased, the entrance was opened once again, revealing the man I now identified as the Eleventh Doctor, albeit wearing a brown tweed jacket as opposed to the purple jacket and waistcoat he'd been wearing when I met him during that incident with the Zygons and the Time War.

"Blimey," Clyde said, staring at the Time Lord in surprise. "You really have changed faces, haven't you? I couldn't see you before, I was too busy swapping-"

"Oi, we're still cooking back here!" Rani yelled.

"Where's my gran?" Santiago asked.

"Right, yes, sorry," the Doctor replied, demonstrating the kind of discomfort I wouldn't have expected from the man I thought of as 'my' Doctor even when he genuinely didn't know what to do. "She's in danger, so we'd better, er… can't turn around."

"You'll have to shuffle backwards," I said, smiling reassuringly at my old friend

"Oh, good idea; thanks, Bella," the Doctor said, as he began to move backwards down the shaft, Clyde hurrying down the shaft after the Time Lord while I followed him, taking care to look over him rather than deal with the awkwardness of having a teenage boy's rear end in my face.

"Even your eyes are different," I heard Clyde say up ahead. "It's weird, 'cause I thought the eyes would stay the same. Can you change colour or are you always white?"

"I could be anything," the Doctor replied.

"And is there a limit? How many times can you change?"

"Five hundred and seven," the Doctor said briskly. I was fairly sure that wasn't true- I couldn't recall exactly when it came up, but I definitely remembered the Doctor once telling me that he only had twelve regenerations- but I wasn't going to spend too much time wondering about why the Doctor would tell a lie like that in the middle of a situation like this. As we emerged into the main corridors from the vents, I smiled in relief as the heat finally ended, but that smile faltered when I heard a strange hum in the air.

"They've started," the Doctor said, looking up apprehensively.

"Started what?" I asked him, as we began to hurry down the corridor towards the source of the humming.

"The Shansheeth want the TARDIS."

"So they stole it?" Rani asked.

"That was what they were after when they lured me in," the Doctor said. "They want to use the old girl to change history, but they left me behind when they took her, which meant they didn't have access to her key, and obviously knew I would never _give_ them the key even if they'd caught me at the same time, so they set up this whole funeral thing to get a new one."

"What; they wanted to steal mine?" I asked. "Or Jo or Sarah's?"

"Nothing that simple," the Doctor said grimly. "The Shansheeth have memory weave technology; they can use that to analyse Jo and Sarah's memories of me _using_ the key and create their own key from that."

"Oh my God…" Rani said, putting on an additional burst of speed as we finally reached the door to the chapel where the Shansheeth had been preparing the fake funeral.

"They've sealed it off," the Doctor said, after an examination of the door confirmed that it wasn't going to open. "Jo, Sarah, can you hear me?"

"They want the key!" Sarah called through the door. "They've got the TARDIS, and a memory weave!"

"Too late," I heard Colonel Karim's voice say on the other side of the door. "Full activation."

I vaguely heard one of the Shansheeth say something after that, but the voice was too low for me to pick out its exact words.

"Try to find a way in," the Doctor said.

"There's nothing," Santiago said, slamming his hand against the door in frustration. "We need a bulldozer."

"I've got the original here!" the Doctor yelled, tossing the key in his hand up and catching it as he leant against the door. "You can have it if you let them go!"

"Doctor," I glared at my friend, "firstly, that's a terrible trade, and secondly, if these people know _anything_ about you, they are _never_ going to open this door and let you in there!"

"I have to do _something_!" the Doctor yelled, turning back to continue his desperate examination of the door as I heard Sarah and Jo's anxious voices on the other side. In desperation, Clyde grabbed a fire extinguisher and began slamming it against the door, but it was soon clear that this wasn't going to make any difference to our efforts.

"Don't!" Jo yelled out from the chapel room. "Don't!"

"I can't stop!" Sarah cried, clearly failing to fight the memory weave's efforts.

"What do we do, Doctor?" Clyde looked urgently at the Doctor, who was currently examining the control panel for the funeral room. "What do we do?"

"The Shansheeth are making them remember," the Doctor said, sitting back to look thoughtfully at nothing in particular.

"We know that-" Clyde began impatiently.

"But that's important?" I asked eagerly.

"If we can do the same," the Doctor said, standing up and urgently adjusting controls. "Opening comms; Sarah, Jo, can you hear me?"

"The key!" Sarah yelled, her voice now clearer than it had been when we were just straining to listen through the doors. "It's almost ready!"

"Listen to me, both of you," the Doctor said urgently. "I want you to remember."

"We are; that's the trouble!" Jo called out.

"No, no, no, no," the Doctor said, moving to stand up against the door. "I want you to remember everything. Every single day with me. Every single day… because your memories are more powerful than anything else on this planet. Just think of it. Remember it. But properly. Properly. Give the Memory Weave everything. Every planet, every face, every madman, every loss, every sunset, every scent, every terror, every joy, every Doctor. Every me."

"I remember," Sarah said, panic gone as she now sounded like she was smiling.

"No!" Karim's voice yelled.

"Memory weave overloading," an artificial voice reported.

"I remember," Jo put in, sounding just as joyful as Sarah.

"We need that key!" Karim yelled.

"You _want_ the key, Colonel Bitch," I cut in with a mocking smirk as I activated the comm. "The only ones with any true right to that key are the Doctor and whoever _he_ lets into that box; _you_ don't qualify on any account!"

"The device is overloading!" the Shansheeth yelled. "Too many memories; too many!"

"Reverse it!" Karim protested. "Bring that key back!"

"That's not happening!" I yelled.

"Come on, all of you," the Doctor said, looking encouragingly back at Clyde, Rani and Santiago. "Tell them, tell them!"

"Think of us, Sarah Jane," Clyde said, as he and the other children joined the Doctor by the door, the Graske examining the control panel. "Remember Maria and her dad, and all the stuff we did, like the Gorgon."

"And the clowns, and the zodiac," Rani continued. "And the _Mona Lisa_."

"All of it," I could just hear Sarah saying over the comms. "All of it…"

"Just think, Gran," Santiago put in. "All the countries you've been to."

"Every country in the world…" Jo responded wistfully.

"Weave starting to self-destruct," the computer reported.

"It's blown a circuit!" Sarah said

"I can't get out," Jo's voice uttered, only for Sarah to report that she had rescued her fellow traveller.

"Now we're in trouble," the Doctor said, suddenly pacing. "The Weave's going to blow up, and we can't get them out."

"What?" Rani looked sharply at him.

"OK, we've already established that this door isn't going to open from this end, but maybe in there?" I said, indicating the door even as I heard the Shansheeth and Karim anxiously talking to each other before a series of muffled explosions.

"We've drained the sonic lipstick," Sarah Jane reported from her end. "Doctor? Doctor, I can't get out."

"And we can't open this," the Doctor said. "I left my sonic screwdriver in the TARDIS before it was stolen…"

"And we can't get in there, because we stopped ourselves getting the key," Sarah finished for him. "Oh, that was clever…"

"I just want to say," Jo put in, as the children looked solemnly at each other as they realised the implications of this development. "I'm so glad I saw you again. I waited all this time, and it was worth it. Every second."

In a morbid way, I could understand where the older woman was coming from; even if I'd met this Doctor in his future, it was still good to see him 'again'…

"Funny thing is though," Jo mused, "your funeral turns out to be ours instead."

"My funeral?" the Doctor said, in the manner common to all the Doctors I'd met when they realised they'd missed the obvious.

"Doctor, all of you," Sarah began. "You'll look after Luke for me, please-"

"No, no, no, no, but listen," the Doctor said urgently. "My funeral. Don't you see? It's my _funeral_!"

"With a lead-lined coffin!" Jo and Sarah said simultaneously at the other side of the door.

Even if I couldn't see what my fellow ex-companions were doing right now, it was easy enough to guess; the two women were heading for the box that had been identified as the Doctor's coffin and had pushed the lid off so that they could get inside. What the Shansheeth were doing during this particular moment, assuming any of them had survived those earlier explosions, I didn't know and didn't care about; considering their appearance, I doubted they could fit in the coffin, and even if the Doctor would officially disapprove, I couldn't bring myself to feel that bothered about whatever was going to happen to Karim.

"How much time have they got?" the Doctor asked, looking sharply at the Groske.

"Big bang, ten seconds," the blue alien replied.

"Come on!" the Doctor yelled, the Groske now counting down as various sounds were distantly heard coming from the other side of the still-locked chapel room, leaving the Doctor, Clyde, Rani, Santiago, the Groske and I to find whatever kind of cover we could in preparation for what was about to happen…

Finally, as the Groske said 'Two', the doors exploded off their hinges in a massive fireball, with such force that they actually bent like wood, leaving nothing but foul-smelling smoke filling the corridor.

"What did you mean, the _Mona Lisa_?" the Doctor looked at Rani in surprise, as though only just remembering the earlier comment.

"Maybe something to ask questions about when we _don't_ have old friends to save from a bunch of vultures?" I put in, smiling slightly at the Time Lord's nonplussed attitude at such a comparatively minor detail.

"Good point," the Doctor agreed, as the five of us walked into the chapel, the Groske alongside us as we took in the now-deserted room. The TARDIS itself was unharmed, but there was a mangled melted mess of equipment that must have been the memory weave in the middle of the room, and a few large piles of ash in places that I didn't want to examine too closely.

"Smells like roast chicken," the Groske observed.

"Now then, Smith and Jones," the Doctor said, following my example of ignoring the ashes by walking over to the coffin, opening the lid to reveal the two women inside it. "The coffin was the trap; the coffin was the solution. That's so neat, I could write a thesis. Come on then, you two; out you get."

It was probably a morbid response, but watching Jo and Sarah Jane laugh at the impossibility of their recent survival, it was hard not to start chuckling incredulously at the situation myself.

_Escape certain death by hiding in a_ coffin… _that_ is _ridiculous, when you think about it._

Granted, compared to the time the Doctor and I fought alongside Disney princesses to save the world, this was relatively tame, but the point was still valid.


	5. The Next Doctor

When the TARDIS materialised in our requested destination of Sarah's attic, it didn't take long for the children to virtually dash out of the ship, Rani immediately berating Mr Smith for not warning us about the Shansheeth while the computer revealed that the main Shansheeth group had already expressed their apologies for the actions of their brethren. Santiago and Clyde were each clearly impressed at this glimpse of Mr Smith and the TARDIS in action respectively, but as I stood in the TARDIS with Jo, Sarah, and the Doctor, a part of me couldn't help but focus on what was happening around me inside the ship rather than outside.

However I tried not to think about it- however much the TARDIS had 'programmed' my mind so that I couldn't _consciously_ think about it- I knew that this would likely be the last time I ever saw the Doctor…

"Same old TARDIS," Jo said, walking around the console with a blanker wrapped around herself, staring at the brilliant orange interior. "It doesn't matter what's changed, it still… _smells_ the same."

I wasn't sure if I would define the similarity as something as basic as smell, but I appreciated Jo's point; this TARDIS console room might look like a strange combination of the TARDIS when I'd travelled with the Doctor and the console room I'd seen this incarnation using in his future- the future one had just been blue and felt a bit more coordinated- but there was still something comforting about it despite its unique qualities…

"No," Jo said, shaking her head. "I've got to say goodbye, or else I'd stay with you forever. Besides, I probably couldn't keep up any more; get you into trouble with the Time Lords."

"Mmm… Yeah, I'd probably better go," the Doctor said, in an awkward tone that discouraged me from correcting Jo's assumption about the status of the Time Lords in his future. "You know me; stuff to do."

"Planets to save, wrongs to right and tea to drink, mmm?" I smiled at him.

"Glad you're doing well anyway, Swan," the Doctor looked at me with a warm smile. "I took a look at everyone last time, but it was… well, you miss details."

"Plus you could only get so close, right?" I noted, understanding what the Doctor was trying not to say; whenever he'd last looked in on me, I must have been too close to vampires for him to want to get closer in case they realised he was there.

"It's daft, though," Sarah noted, shaking her head briefly as she smiled at the Time Lord. "Because we were all saying… we had this theory that if you ever died, we'd feel it, somehow we'd just know. But that's just silly, isn't it?"

"I don't know," the Doctor mused, his expression particularly contemplative as he looked at us. "Maybe not… because between you and me, if that day ever comes… I think the whole universe might just shiver."

The solemn moment was broken when the Doctor made a small jump at us, Jo, Sarah and I starting back in response before we exchanged smiles and began to laugh.

"Something to think about another time?" Jo said.

"Good plan," the Doctor nodded at the three of us. "Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, Bella Swan… keep being brilliant."

"Just be you," Sarah replied, before she and Jo headed for the TARDIS door.

"Goodbye," I said, pausing to look at the Doctor one last time before I turned and followed the other two women out of the ship, looking back with a new sense of sorrow as the door closed and the TARDIS dematerialised.

_And that's the last time I'll ever see a Doctor who knows me…_

"What is it?" Sarah looked at me, prompting me to realise that my eyes were slightly wet.

"It's just…" I began, sighing in resignation. "I actually already know how the Doctor's going to die."

" _What_?" the other five looked at me sharply.

"How?" Jo asked.

"Because I met three of him while I was travelling with… with the one in the brown suit, you know… and one of them was the Doctor who just left, but at some point in his future relative to what just happened," I said, indicating Sarah so she'd know which Doctor I was talking about.

"Hold on; you've already met the Doctor we just met… in his _future_?" Clyde looked at me in surprise.

"I'm not sure how far in his future, so don't ask," I clarified. "But I _did_ meet him, along with… well, it was an earlier incarnation… and we stopped a Zygon invasion… we even saved Gallifrey… and just before we left, the Doctor who just left this attice told _my_ Doctor that he'd learned they're destined to die on the planet Trenzalore."

"Trenzalore?" Rani repeated in surprise. "What's special about Trenzalore?"

"I… I don't know," I said sadly. "I didn't have time to ask; the Doctor just said that it was where his grave was going to be-"

"The key word in that sentence is _was_ ," another voice said, prompting all of us to spin around in surprise to see a short brown-haired woman standing in the door of the attic, smiling politely at us.

" _Clara_?" I looked at the Doctor's future companion in surprise.

"Clara?" Jo and Sarah looked at me inquiringly.

"She… well, she'll travel with the Doctor we just met in his future; I met her when I met that Doctor while I was travelling with _my_ Doctor…" I said, waving that off before looking at Clara in surprise. "What are you doing here; isn't your time… well, a few years in the future?"

"Oh, it is," Clara smiled at me. "But I just left Trenzalore a few days ago, and I thought you'd like to meet this man."

"Who-?" I began, before another man stepped out into the door of the room, this one a tall figure with grey hair and a harsh, lined face wearing a black velvet suit.

"Hello, Bella Swan," he said in a rough Scottish accent.

"Who…?" I began, before trailing off as inspiration struck me. " _Doctor_?"

"Hold on; a _third_ one?" Clyde said incredulously.

"Obviously not a third one, Langer," the Doctor looked at Clyde with a harsh glare. "We're all the same man; I'm just the one who doesn't wear tweed and a bow tie any more."

"So… you regenerated?" Sarah looked at the man with a smile.

"But… hold on, you told me that your eleventh incarnation was your _last_ incarnation!" I protested, even as I smiled at this unexpected new reunion with my friend. "You said that you… you'd used up all your lives!"

"I did," the Doctor said, his new rougher face broken by a surprisingly warm smile at me. "And then I found Gallifrey."

"Found Gallifrey?" Jo repeated in surprise. "Why did it need to be found?"

"And it's… it's all right?" Sarah said, looking anxiously at the Doctor. "You told me… everyone was dead?"

"Trapped and cut off from the rest of the universe, but they're all alive as far as we can tell," Clara smiled. "A while after we met you, the Doctor spent the rest of his last life guarding a crack in reality that led to wherever Gallifrey had been hidden, defending it from basically anyone with a grudge against his people, but when he was about to die of old age in a stand-off against the last Dalek ship attacking Trenzalore, we were able to talk to the Time Lords for help, and… well, they gave him a new set of regenerations."

" _New_ regenerations?" Jo looked at the Doctor in surprise. "You mean you had a _limit_ and you never told me?"

"I was only on my third body when I was with you, Jo; when I had ten more regenerations left at that time, there was no reason to worry you about the possibility of my permanent death back then," the Doctor explained briefly.

"And nowadays there's no way of knowing _how_ many he has," Clara put in with a smile, before she looked at me with a more serious expression. "Anyway, that's the main reason we're here, really; I remembered that you were there when he told himself about Trenzalore, so I thought… well, best that everyone who knew about that particular mess also knew that he wasn't going to die for good there now either."

"Really?" I looked at the Time Lord with a smile. "Thanks."

"It was Clara's suggestion," the Doctor said, shrugging in an awkward manner that prompted me to smile; this Doctor clearly had some issues with expressing himself emotionally compared to the last two I'd met, but there was still something behind his manner that showed that he still cared even if he was bad at showing it.

"Well," the Doctor said, looking around the room with a brief shrug, "I've told you all I'm not dead before Bella could mention how I was _going_ to snuff it, so-"

" _So_ ," Sarah said, stepping forward to place a firm hand on the Doctor's arm, "now that you _are_ here, which implies you didn't have anything _else_ to do right now, I think it's only fair that you stick around for at least the next couple of hours so that we can talk about everything that's happened."

"Well…" the Doctor said, looking awkwardly around the attic for a few moments before he turned to face Sarah with an uncertain smile. "Why not? Seeing a few old friends could help me get everything sorted out after that last regeneration."

It was an awkwardly worded concession, but judging by the pleased smile on Clara's face as she looked at the new Doctor, it was a positive step in terms of his personal development.

The Eleventh Doctor might have had to leave abruptly, but if the Twelfth Doctor had come all this way to reassure me, I for one was going to make sure he stayed for at least _one_ meal with all of us. I was already sure that I was going to encourage Santiago to try and patch things up between his parents once he moved, but Jo, Sarah and I had so many more stories to share with each other about our time with the Doctor, I was resolved to get the Doctor to tell a few stories about his own time with the other two women that their children would enjoy while they found it embarrassing, and I would even see what I could do about convincing the Doctor to give Jo and Santiago a lift to wherever they wanted to go now.

We might never have been in the same room as each other before now, but we were all part of the most complicated family in existence, and I had hope that wasn't going to change any time soon.

I'd come a long way from that lonely and terrified girl who'd been so hung up on the loss of one vampire boyfriend that she'd almost killed herself, and I owed it all to meeting the most remarkable man in the known universe, who'd shown me what I was truly capable of in a manner that even Edward had never allowed me to explore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of this series (unless some future episode airs where Bella's involvement would feel absolutely _perfect_ to me based on the context of this storyline); thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end, and I hope you've enjoyed my take on Bella Swan's journey from desperate ex-girlfriend of a vampire to world-changing ex-companion of the 'last of the Time Lords'.


End file.
